I hate finding myself staying up late

waiting by my phone

for a call you’ll never make

I hate you

yet

before I sleep

I taste your name on my lips

followed by the words

I miss you

Nobody ever misses me right away.

I have a tendency of making my way into parts of your life that you don’t notice until long after I’m gone.

You’ll think of me in the laundromat, when someone three washers down has the same fabric softener I had just washed my clothes with the night before our first date.

You’ll think of me at the coffee shop, when someone ahead of you in line asks for three sugars and two creamers, like I used to.

You’ll think of me when your sister shows up to your house wearing the same nail polish I did the first time you kissed the back of my hand.

You’ll think of me when you’re in the car alone and you realize you don’t turn on the radio anymore, ‘cause our silence used to be better than whatever was playing.

You won’t really realize it until it’s too late and I’m too far gone.

Until I’m so deeply embedded into your memory and intertwined into your everyday life.

You won’t miss me immediately.

It’ll take some time.

I am not a poet
and you are not a mystery.

You are a boy
with eyes too blue
to be compared to anything
but the sky

and I am just a
lonely girl
who wishes you would
stand still
long enough to see
the stars in her eyes.

You wanted the calm
but I am the storm;

banging at the
boarded windows
of your heart

begging

to be let in.

If this were a fairy tale
         you would be the Almost Prince
       and I would be the
      Tower;

  Valiantly, you would attempt
  to fight your way through
my maze of corridors
   and traps to
   rid me of the burden of
     my secrets,

    while I could only stand
    and watch, attempting not
     to crumble under the
    ferocity of your attack.

    Not because I wish to,
    but because I am just a Tower
    (and you are just a “Prince”)

and this is all
I know how to do.